Blizzard’s new focus for WoW, just as soon as Mythic finishes it.

Blizzard, being the inventive genius shop that they are, have some rather revolutionary ideas in the works. Hold on to your hats, this could change EVERYTHING! I’ve gone ahead and edited a recent Bliz post, as they must have been in a hurry and forgot some key details. The ‘missing’ text is in bold.

Actually, we have been discussing new battlegrounds quite a bit lately. (since WAR sold so well and it seems this wacky idea of PvP might actually work, despite our best efforts to force everyone to grind raids) Wrath of the Lich King will feature Strand of the Ancients (attack/defend) as well as Wintergrasp (non-instanced, world PvP) (Which is not a BG, but we wanted to mention it during our talk of BGs. We realize this means we are adding exactly one new BG, just like we did with TBC, but we have not had enough time to play the upper tiers of WAR yet to see what we will do for our BGs, give us time. Our version of RvR will also likely be a pointless token grind, but hey… open PvP…)

But past that, we are exploring ideas that would involve expanding our Battleground content in future patches and beyond. (Once we see what WAR did in T3-T4) We believe we (Mythic) have some strong ideas for improving Battlegrounds and PvP as a whole in the game and we’re definitely going to focus on improvements in the future. (Especially if WAR continues to sell and gain ground, otherwise it’s back to raiding!) Now, it’s very early to be talking about some of this stuff but I think it’s important for the community to know that it’s on our minds. (To rephrase, we have not seen RvR work in T4 yet, so we can’t exactly say what features we will copy, but as soon as T4 starts up, we will be there with note pads and cameras)

Our general thought is that we could provide more BG content over time. (We could have done this in 2005, but we were too busy designing raiding tiers and ways to split guilds) The BG content that we could provide could be of higher quality with a higher degree of accessibility. (Sorry for being super vague, but again, we have not seen tier 4 in WAR yet) Overall, we’d like to have more content and variety. (We like having three scenario options per tier, starting with tier 1) We also want the gameplay experience in the BGs to be better directed. (We still can’t figure out how to solve WSG becoming a flag camp fest, or how to fix AV from being a rush to the npc game, sorry. Try our raids!) We’re also exploring the concept of a complimentary “competitive” bg system as well. (E-sport servers, now with BGs! Only a one time micro-transaction fee of $20!) Over time, we’d like the focus of PvP to shift back to being more BG-centric and more focused on Horde versus Alliance — the core of our game. (And by core, we mean the general theme that we abandoned in 2005, then later over-killed with Arenas and jointly owned cities in Outland. We want to go back to our stolen Games Workshop IP roots and do that wacky war theme again)

We’re also planning on improving some Battleground and PvP features in general. (Like making it easier to AFK farm honor) For example, we want to give you the ability to queue for Battlegrounds from anywhere in the world. (We just thought of this, totally random, despite having players wait around in Ironforge for the last 3 years and doing nothing about it) We’re also going to explore EXP gain through the PvP system as well as low level itemization to support that. (We intend to kill all twinks, who happen to be the only ones playing lower level BGs. We also want to address the fact that our itemization for PvP pre-70 has been total shit. In our defense, it’s only been total shit for 4 years, so you know, not that long in Blizzard time)

Please don’t take this post as a promise. (Mythic might make other improvements we might have to copy, ask them) This won’t be an overnight process. (Copying takes a lot of time) Not all of these things are set in stone and guaranteed to happen. (Again, blame Mythic) It would take us a while to shift in this direction. (Anyone know if anyone left Mythic recently? We are hiring) But these are some of the current thoughts on the (Mythic) development team. I think it’s important for you guys to know some of our thought process in regards to PvP. (and please don’t quit and play WAR. Stay around, grind honor/rep/tokens until we can steal enough ideas away to actually provide any worthwhile content. Look new raids with power ranger epics, come get them! Free ponies for everyone!)

(And before we get too far, I fully understand companies ‘borrow’ ideas from one another. It just struck me how blatantly ‘me too’ this post sounded coming from Blizzard. The other issue is that Blizzard never acknowledges anyone else in the market, and anything they do, it’s as if they are brining it first to the only MMO out. I love the company’s games, but the overall attitude is a bit much, and it won’t kill them to at least give credit once in a while)

68 Responses to Blizzard’s new focus for WoW, just as soon as Mythic finishes it.

Great post! Welcome to 2008 Blizzard! After ignoring your customers for 3 years now you come out with all these great original ideas to revive PvP (what’s that?). Good job Blizzard, I guess you finally realized that living off the “status quo” is not a good long term plan. Too little, too late.

I don’t think I’ve laughed out loud reading a blog in a long time. lol I have often raged against the fact that Bliz steals everything without so much as a thank you, I understand it’s a fact of the industry, but to blatantly make an announcement right after the successful launch of WAR is just silly. As if people didn’t know who they are stealing from this time.

Being able to que up a bg anywhere in the world – Stolen from WARs great Scenario system. Course you’ll be able to que for all the bgs at once I’m sure once the accommidating mod is written. lol

Hilarious, frustrating, and true. I envision Blizzard execs stumbling around like the zombies in a Romero flick, “BRAINS! BRAINS!” They picked the bones of the EQ raiding game dry and need some fresh blood. Hopefully a healthy dose of good, old-fashioned competition will keep Blizzard on their toes and make them reach higher than the lackluster “improvements” they’ve been spoon feeding their subscribers for the last year or so.

Nice! I never really thought about that way… but yeah, why the heck haven’t they added more BGs? They can’t possibly be all THAT difficult to create… sure, there are issues of ensuring balance, of sorts, and making sure that terrain isn’t all the exploitable but even that is possible to fix up after the fact.

Well all along Blizzard claimed each BG took an enormous amount of time to create, and everyone bought it because we had nothing else to believe.

Then Mythic releases WAR, and you have scenarios coming out your ears, and all of a sudden now Blizzard is focused on increasing and improving BGs. I wish I could find it, but I swear I remember a Blizzard post about how BGs are somewhat unimportant ‘side shows’ in WoW, and not something to really focus on. It was something they stated whenever people asked for more BG variety, or to fix the issues with WSG/AV, way back in the day.

I mean some AV matches literally lasted for days, and it took how long for Blizzard to make a change? Not to mention the first few changes never actually solved the problem (anyone remember the elite troll that lived in 3-4 different places before being finally removed?), and eventually Blizzard turned AV into a deathmatch map. Lazy, halfassed work, and they got away with it because no one challenge them until now.

To play the devil’s advocate, I think this post is a clear indication of how and why competition is going to be good for the industry, and that means Blizzard will be doing good things in the future. Even though they’re a PvE game with a PvE focus for PvE players. The fact that a lot of PvPers choose to play Wow is because it’s the highest quality game on the market, not because it trumpets the best PvP ever. And frankly, Mythic is not getting things right on the first try. We all had to complain about only queuing for one scenario out of three, and itemization is really bad, and balance needs work, and pet controls are abysmal, and there is a clear sense of favoritism on the part of the devs for Destruction (which guts open RvR on some servers). Let he who is blameless throw the first stone, eh?

So of course Blizz will make changes to their PvP in order to mimic some awesome ideas that Mythic had, but I think it’s unfair to lay into Blizzard for spending most of its time developing PvE content. It is the fault of the player who looks to a PvE game as a paragon of PvP gameplay.

That said, you’re totally right about so much of the post. It’s embarrassing that Blizz waits until there is competition to fix this stuff. On the plus side, now there is competition.

It’s so funny how Blizzard is suddenly ‘innovating’ when they have had so many years with so many flaws in the game yet they ignored them all along.

I’m willing to wait for Mythic to add more polish to WAR because I feel like I can trust them to actually innovate FOR the players and make a FUN game- not the game that a couple of lead designers at Blizzard thinks everyone should play.

Good post. Spot on. But don’t expect Blizzard to give credit to anyone ever. Not that they’re a bad company. If they start giving out credit, and they haven’t paid for it… yeah, I can see the law suits now. It’s the same reason they can’t comment on any suggestions ever given. If they use one and acknowledge it directly, they’d have to pay… eventually.

Competition is always good for established players :) That being said, it’s still a bit early to figure out WAR’s staying power. It took about two months to get a relevant measure of LOTRO and AoC, and the more successful WAR is the longer it will take to make a realistic assessment.

Also, keep in mind that WAR isn’t Mythic’s first MMORPG nor Mythic’s first implementation of RvR. All things being equal, it’s probably a bit easier to get things right when you have previous experience upon which you can rely when you start designing your next venture instead of trying to tack similar elements onto an existing (and not really compatible) design.

The as of yet unannounced top sekrit second Blizzard MMO is bound to ship with the results of WoW’s learnings.

Competition is always good for the consumer. PvP really has been the red-headed stepchild of Blizzard’s content design efforts for four years, and if having real competition makes Blizzard put real effort into improving their PvP game options, that’s all to the good. Blizzard’s devs are generally fairly good at their jobs, and while they will certainly steal every good idea from WAR that they think they can get away with, it’s likely that they’ll also come up with good original ideas. That Mythic will then steal. And so on. Winner: we the players.

What a sobering post…and SO very true. You have just summed up what my husband and I have been bitching about for years. Yes, the fact that they are stealing crap from WAR pisses me off to no end but I think the thing that really irks me the most is the fact that after YEARS of customers/fans complaining, Blizzard did not do a single thing to improve on the PvP system…nor did they address that their adoring public had any opinions that mattered to begin with. Um, bad idea shunning the people that pay your salaries, Blizz.

And kudos to Mythic. They have created an awesome game that not only are they excited about creating but they are excited about sharing with fans. It sounds strange and probably unrealistic but I think Mythic employees are less worried about how much money they will make with WAR and more worried about making (and keeping) scores of MMO gamers enthused and involved. Mythic is the result of what happens when big corporations like Blizzard come along…they are the “little guys” who don’t care about competition and just want to make a game that they are passionate about. I guess that gives us one thing to be grateful to Blizzard for.

So great in fact that T1 and T2 are already pretty much dead in the water on Destruction. Having levelled 4 characters up to 11 on 3 different servers, and queueing up scenarios constantly, I’ve played the Dark Elf and Greenskin scenarios twice each. Notably, neither of those have popped for me since the ability to queue up to all three at once was implemented. Wait times between scenarios are also getting notably longer – 5-10 minutes during release week, 30 mins to an hour now. The one character I’m progressing through T2 is experiencing exactly the same issues, except I now get to play Troll Country instead of Nordenwatch.

It doesn’t say much to me about the longevity of WAR when only three weeks into release, low level scenarios and PQs are already heading the way of the WoW 1-60 instance game.

Sorry but this whole post comes across to me as rabid fanboyism of the worst kind. Not so much cynical, as pathetic.

Blizzard needs a few improvement in the PvP domain. Queue from everywhere and 2-3 extra BG’s would be nice to have to add variation.
I have thought a lot on the subject, and I think that there is no real difference between the two game in BG vs Scenario games.
Both grind some kind of honor (vs RP). Only that in WoW you get substantial rewards from this grind (items with ilevel equal to high end raiding). This awakes the need of loot for many players, who are self enforced into the grind. While in WAR nothing really game changing comes from RvR. Some green gear for the casual players, sidegrades the most of the time. So no self induced grind there! (based on what I have seen up to Rank 33/RR28)

Have you noticed that only a few people in WAR care about items and upgrades, and how those are related to RvR performance? I think this is due to the fact that almost all models are the same (weapons for instance). So just get your noobie greens with irrelevant stats, paint them purple/orange and you look just like the other guy with the 31lvl blue Axe (vs your 20lvl green one).

@Varakkys: I haven’t been in T1 lately, but I have not done a single PQ since lvl 24 (now 33) (no ppl in the zones doing anything past grinding solo phase 1).
T4 is a deserted zone. RvR not existing at all, no queues have popped up in the last 2 days.

I find it odd how stupid people are regarding Blizzard. Half of the retards that play WOW have never played another MMO pre-WOW. And about one-fifth of the player base that has played another MMO, played EQ/EQ2 — yeah for grind and loot fests. PvE is great!
Get a clue. Yes, all game companies steal ideas. But Blizzard had four f@#king years to fix their broke ass World of Grindcraft and now they want to do something because WAR -is- a better game? F@#k off Blizzard. Any retard that continues to play WOW deserves the shitty game that it is.

What Blizzard does best is taking good ideas that are lacking in implementation and polish, and make them shine. None of their games are truly original, but they are very well done, and that’s what makes them succeed.

As a customer, I have zero interest in who thinks up an idea first, only who does it best in the most fun implementation for me.

Gee, Scott, and isn’t Arathi Basin just Team Fortress’ Canalzone map, with grass and trees instead of buildings and streets?

Please. The last time I saw an original idea in a PvP map was…Quakeworld. The basics are the basics for a reason, its all presentation and style after that. Not knocking Arathi Basin, I liked it, but don’t try to claim that Nordenwatch is a rip of Arathi Basin.

Blizzard drug its feet for years, they didn’t have to do any real work on the battlegrounds, because, hey, competition? What competition? Now its coming back to haunt them, and their frantic damage control is obviously just that. Spin, and badly timed spin at that.

If it’s taking an hour to get into a scenario, you’re on a low population server. On a Medium/High for Order/Destruction I’m getting into a scenario after waiting maybe 20 minutes in Tier 3. For my Order character on a different server (obviously) my scenario’s are instant que and that’s a High/Full population. If you’re playing on a Low/Low yes things will take longer, that sucks for the player, but look at Today’s patch notes, methods are now in place to draw players to start playing on Low population servers.

To summarize a theme oft repeated above: “Uhhh … yeah … Blizzard made me spend 4 years playing their crappy game that they never improved they are so mean.”

Seriously folks. Many of you played WOW for years … and now you are saying that it and the company that made it sucks??? Do you really regard your own judgement as that impaired? Or did you really spend years of your life playing a game that you hated.

WAR is a great game. WOW is a great game. Do yourselves a favour and realize that those two facts don’t actually cancel each other out.

As to the blog posting … funny and intentionally over the top. But references to stolen IP are pretty funny when referencing the IP glomfest that is the Warhammer universe :) Now … had they done a warhammer 40k MMO … :)

Great post, it was very entertaining. I for one played WoW since it’s near release, and I must say for all of you who complain that the PvP content of WoW sucks, it’s unbalanced, it’s just a grind for tokens, go back to when the game first came out, the only PvP there was, was world PvP to attack towns which was how the game was originally intended. Warsong Gulch, the first battle ground to be introduced never even started in the game, it was patched in many months after the release. It is a PvE based game and the fact that they tried so hard to implement PvP into it is what made it worse off as they continued.

I must say, the world PvP was much more fun then just sitting in your town and Queuing up. Now there’s no purpose to go out and attack places, plus the only people who do that are already 70 and soon to be 80 attacking level 10 towns because they know they suck at PvP, since they’re all in PvE gear and can’t handle an even fight.

WoW is a good game, but what’s the point of playing a game where you can AFK in BG’s get free gear for it and have all the PvE content be constantly made easier with each patch that’s put out because no one knows how to play the game for what it is. It’s become too much of a noob fest, no challenge anymore and that’s the most fun of a game. I have to say, if you aren’t having fun playing a game, then why play it?

The big problem that people are seeing with this post made by blizzard is the fact that in the beginning (and with what my experience has told me) WoW was meant to be more of a PVE with a focus on grouping as well, and PvP was to be a side note in WoW till later (most likely till competition rises). War on the other hand was focuesed with RvR (this is completely different than PvP talk more about that later) and PvE to be a side note, although disguised very well with Public Quests which should be adopted by others.
These two different focuses immediately create a different feel and more importantly a different social atmosphere within the game.
Players in WoW even in guilds do not socialize much unless pertaining to a raid and are SELFISH in who gets loot. It is a very hostile social enviroment in the late game because no one wants to be bothered qwhile grinding forever to get a specific item or advance to the next level. After grinding for so long the character has to repair his items by going all the way back to the nearest settlement which in WoW is a long ass ride before he can complete anything else. Anytime you ask for help they want you to help them first, and it becomes the battle of egos in who helps who first. In PvP healers will blame others for their deaths, warriors whines about not getting healed, and mages and rouges complain saying you are useless as a warrior you noob. This would drive anyone mad enough to write a book on where God screwed up in the creation of mankind being social creatures.
WoW has great content if not the best, but the social atmosphere and everything in betweem is annoying and frustrating.
WARon the other hand is very friendly with my experience of playing at least five servers (four order, one destruction, they need the help). The action is quick and fast, no need for repairs on armor and arms, Tome of knowledge to let you know where everything is, three different baars for exp (Exp, Renown, and Inf.) and OPEN PARTY GROUP and WARBANDS. These little things make the grinding easier to bear and meeting new people who are either on a quest or in a PQ in a friendly matter. IN RvR this works out well to, their is no such thing as having enough people to help take back the keep ( or having enough cannons). Even if you don’t get the loot you probably earned a huge amount of Exp. or Renown in taking it or killing other players helping you get other nice loot (as long as Renown and Exp. are close together). Best of all the RvR HAS PURPOSE BESIDES GEAR OR TITLES. What ever you do contributes to the living city system, your living guild system and everyone in the tier for your success with passive benefits, gear is just a bonus.
To then Focus on the main disgustion here about WoW focusing more on PvP in the expansion. It cannot work well with the system in place as there is again NO PURPOSE other than gear( focusing again on I and not TEAM), the environments are to open to let warriors get easily get pciked off by mages and now siege weapons, and the closed environment with collision detection to give the tank a purpose in making choke points.
IN War however some people are takiong the idead of leveling up from one to 40 through RVR serious and leaving PvE. PQ’s as well end up being meeting areas to plan attacks on objectives and keeps in the world rather then focuesed on PvE.
Both of these games are 2 different flavors of the MMO genre one fast paced and RvR hardcore, the other casual and great PvE content. As Paul Barnett said we are not meant to beat the Beatles (WoW), in their own field of music (what WoW specializes in) cause we would end up like the Monkeys and no one wants to be the Monkeys. We are Lead Zepplin with fewer but true hardcore members focused on something different than what WoW has….. RvR!!!!

Forgive me for any spelling mistakes as this is a good practice for writing papers in college on the fly

then please tell me why you like WoW (and say who you play as please). I said their was plenty of good things in WoW, I didn’t write them down because there is just too many to list, I was also talking more about the differences in community between WAR and WoW not game developing as a whole. And you do kinda of prove my point (if you do like WoW) that you tear down other’s opinions without saying your side of the argument in why you like one over the other. I stated why I like WAR over WoW, this is just one person’s opinion. Sorry if it seems like I was trying to brainwashpeople I wasn’t. This is just why I like WAR.

WAR is probably the better game, foundationally, but not in practice. Hopefully it catches up and surpasses soon. WoW should die, but it can’t if WAR doesn’t start working right more than 50% of the time.

WoW should die
Considering EQ and UO are still here after over 10 years of existence, with 20 times less paying subscribers at the peak of their history, I hope you’re not holding your breath until this happens.

Very good blog. I would love to play WoW again, and if the expansion doesn’t make some of the same mistakes that TBC did, I probably will go back (and play both WAR and WoW). I’ll just have to wait and see. For now, I’m having a lot of fun in WAR.

haha seems like ur pissed at blizzard for some reason… banned?
u speak like war didnt “steal”, borrow, “come up with” (whatever u wanna call it) ideas from WoW xD, and thats just naive. I mean without WoW, war would be a total bug frenzy (even more than it is now).
Maby the reason why blizzards isnt giving mythic creds is because mythic didnt give blizzards creds for everything they’ve “stolen”.

lol just read a comment above saying that war has a frendlier atmosphere… ye WoW had that atmosphere when it was released aswell, when ppl didnt rly know what the game was about and could take a death or two without getting upset because they wasnt rly sure what they were doing. u just wait man… the whine will begin very soon ^^.

I know, this was supposed to be a joke (or funny in some way).. i just saw how many that agreed with u and i thought “are ppl rly this stupid oO”… and i guess they are :S peace

wow plast, i think ur the idiot here…i played WoW during launch, it was just as shitty as it is now (well not quite…now there are 70 and soon to be 80 lvls to grind…now that’s what i call fun) i think that, even though this blog makes a few exagerations, for the sake of humor, it is VERY near to the truth…god…i can’t wait until you figure out just how shitty WoW is and quit…hope to see u in WAR…oh, and please roll order…i wanna kill u over and over

Nice post, but I got the truth to tell you this, all mmo games copy ideas from one game to another. That’s call competition and they make money because of it. If you can’t accept that, well than mmo games are not for you.

After all these years looking at WoW and always being on the sidelines since I quit from playig “hardcore” several years ago I am still amazed at the crusader like attitude people take towards the game. Its as if by saying that;

“Hey, you know what? WoW isn’t the monolithic genius it proffesses to be and it really isn’t that good a game comparatively.”

Somewhoe gets translated into;

“I hate you, your family, friends and everything you stand for. Get in that corner and let us mock you.”

Play WoW as much as you want or as little as you want. Go all defensive about it and get a WoW tattoo to really make Blizzards day. Basically you are only deluding yourself, so when the time comes that you finally realise how crappy WoW is by the standards set before and since it, the more of “Duh” feeling you’ll get.

Cirosmar Narinhil, you are a total f**ing frustrated idiot :)
Only one thing – Learn to play and grow up :)

I’v tried both games. I play wow almost 4 years and what i can say it is much better then this plagiat shit.
No lore, no pve, servers are dead and the destro/order ratio is fucked up.
Not to mention numberless funny buggs, server dc’s , retarded community etc.
I can say – this game is already dead :)

Hope to see you in wotlk. And yes, please roll alliance @ frostmane, maybe I will give you copper or two ;)

Haha didnt laughed this much in long time . Worst (best) thing is that you are 100% correct with post.And as long they steal good things one from another we will profite most (both WOW and Warhammer players) so lets see what they gonna steal next . ^_^

[…] etc. It’s 2004 all over again! Of course Blizzard has promised those things before, and well, we know how that turned out. (Still love this line: “Over time, we’d like the focus of PvP to shift back to being more […]